Justice won't give memos to Senate

January 3, 2007|By Richard B. Schmitt, Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON -- Setting up what could become the first showdown between the Bush administration and the new Democratic Congress, the Justice Department has refused to turn over two secret documents, describing the CIA's detention and interrogation policies for suspected terrorists, to the incoming chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., who asked for the documents in November, said Tuesday that the department's response suggests President Bush's promise to work with the new Congress "may have been only political lip service."

Leahy has said he might use subpoenas to get the material.

The administration notified Leahy on Dec. 22 that it would not release a presidential directive, signed by Bush, authorizing the CIA to set up secret prisons overseas for suspected terrorists or a 2002 Justice Department legal memorandum outlining "aggressive interrogation techniques."

Leahy waited until the week Democrats take control of Congress to release -- and denounce -- the response. The department's letter to Leahy was sent during Congress' holiday recess, when most lawmakers were out of town.

The exchange is an inauspicious start to what some lawmakers and administration officials had hoped would be a period of bipartisanship after the November election, in which Republicans lost control of both houses of Congress.

Democrats have pledged stepped-up oversight on a number of matters, including the conduct of the Iraq war, the National Security Agency's warrantless electronic surveillance of terror suspects within the United States and the bungled response to Hurricane Katrina.

In a letter Tuesday to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Leahy asked the Justice Department to reconsider its decision. He also told Gonzales that he would "pursue this matter further" as part of an oversight hearing the Judiciary Committee is planning for the department.

"I expect to get the answers. If I don't, then I really think we should subpoena," he said. "If the president wants to claim executive authority, then let him do so, and then we can determine where we go from there."

In its Dec. 22 letter to Leahy, the Justice Department said the information he sought was classified and included confidential legal opinions that were privileged. The department also said disclosing sensitive operational information, such as interrogation techniques, would help the enemy.